An armed separatist group in southern Nigeria which is holding four foreign oil workers hostage said that it will not be swayed by their pleas for release and indicted Italian oil firm Agip for allegedly attempting to pay a ransom. “We have kept these hostages for more than two weeks now. Do you imagine they have not pleaded with us on their own? Why should we be swayed because their appeal is now printed on the pages of an italian paper,” a spokesman a for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an email statement to AFP. Full Story